The Terrifying Real Life Inspiration for 'The Exorcist' Movie
Ghost/Paranormal
Tuesday 22nd, February 2022
For many people The Exorcist is one of the most terrifying movies, not one to watch on your own. But many people think it's just a Hollywood script that was thought up by some creative writers.
In some cases there were very creative scenes thought up that had no relation to the truth or inspiration behind the popular movie.
The movie was based of the novel by William Peter Blatty of the same name The Exorcist, it depicts a young girl becoming possessed by an unseen entity.
When you dig a little deeper you'll find that the inspiration for the novel was based off a young 14 year old boy who was known as 'Roland Doe'. Roland was born to a German Lutheran family and was living in Cottage City, Maryland in the 1940s. Roland was an only child and so spent a lot of his time with his aunt Harriet, Roland's aunt was a spiritualist and she introduced Roland to the Ouija board.
After Roland's aunts death, Roland was said to have started exhibiting strange behavior as well as strange things would happen when Roland was around. Things like unexplained scratching sounds coming from the floor and walls in his room, flying objects, water dripping from pipes with no explanation and furniture would seem move on it's own.
The families Lutheran pastor, Luther Miles Schulze advised the family to contact a Catholic priest. With that the family contacted Edward Hughes, a Roman Catholic priest. Hughes agreed to preform an exorcism at Georgetown University Hospital, during the exorcism it's alleged that Roland was able to get out of his arm restraints and took a bed spring and slashed Hughes's arms.
Following this exorcism, red marks started to appear on Roland's body, one of these marks is said to have spelled out "LOUIS", Roland's mother took this as a sign that they needed to travel to St. Louis, Missouri. Once in St. Louis they were put in contact with William S. Bowdern, an associate at College Church.
Bowdern and another priest, Father Walter Halloran observed Roland at a relatives home, during these observations they noted flying objects, unexplained markings on Roland's body, the bed shaking as well as Roland speaking in a guttural voice and having an aversion to religious items.
It was also noted that during the day Roland was relatively fine with no signs of anything strange occurring, it was only at night that the strange incidents were observed, Bowdern and Halloran decided an exorcism was needed.
Bowdern would report that he completed over 20 exorcisms on Roland and after the final exorcism Roland went on to live a normal life.
With the final exorcism its reported that numerous marks appeared on Roland's body and during the Litany of the Saints the mattress shook and Halloran's nose was broken.
While writing the book Blatty took some liberties with the details presented, to make the book more appealing but also to protect Roland's true identity.
One of the changes was to switch out 14 year old Roland with a 12 year old girl named Reagan MacNeil and reducing the family to just Reagan and her mother, Chris.
The other scenes that were only for entertainment, were the head spinning and the crawling on the ceiling, these events didn't occur in reality and the mark of "LOUIS" on Roland's body was changed to "HELP ME".
Apart from those few pieces the book follows the events as they happened almost to the letter.
After years of keeping Roland's true identity secret, it seems the truth eventually came out and the young boy at the centre of the true events was Roland Edwin Hunkeler, who lived from the 1st of June 1935 until the 10th of May 2020.
Hunkeler's true identity was said to have been found by JD Sword during his research for his podcast, The Devil in the Details.
Hunkeler grew up to be an engineer at NASA and patented the technology used by the space shuttle for their panels to be heat resistant. It was believed that Hunkeler was always terrified that people he worked with would find out his true identity and kept it mostly quiet up to his death.
In some cases there were very creative scenes thought up that had no relation to the truth or inspiration behind the popular movie.
The movie was based of the novel by William Peter Blatty of the same name The Exorcist, it depicts a young girl becoming possessed by an unseen entity.
When you dig a little deeper you'll find that the inspiration for the novel was based off a young 14 year old boy who was known as 'Roland Doe'. Roland was born to a German Lutheran family and was living in Cottage City, Maryland in the 1940s. Roland was an only child and so spent a lot of his time with his aunt Harriet, Roland's aunt was a spiritualist and she introduced Roland to the Ouija board.
After Roland's aunts death, Roland was said to have started exhibiting strange behavior as well as strange things would happen when Roland was around. Things like unexplained scratching sounds coming from the floor and walls in his room, flying objects, water dripping from pipes with no explanation and furniture would seem move on it's own.
The families Lutheran pastor, Luther Miles Schulze advised the family to contact a Catholic priest. With that the family contacted Edward Hughes, a Roman Catholic priest. Hughes agreed to preform an exorcism at Georgetown University Hospital, during the exorcism it's alleged that Roland was able to get out of his arm restraints and took a bed spring and slashed Hughes's arms.
Following this exorcism, red marks started to appear on Roland's body, one of these marks is said to have spelled out "LOUIS", Roland's mother took this as a sign that they needed to travel to St. Louis, Missouri. Once in St. Louis they were put in contact with William S. Bowdern, an associate at College Church.
Bowdern and another priest, Father Walter Halloran observed Roland at a relatives home, during these observations they noted flying objects, unexplained markings on Roland's body, the bed shaking as well as Roland speaking in a guttural voice and having an aversion to religious items.
It was also noted that during the day Roland was relatively fine with no signs of anything strange occurring, it was only at night that the strange incidents were observed, Bowdern and Halloran decided an exorcism was needed.
Bowdern would report that he completed over 20 exorcisms on Roland and after the final exorcism Roland went on to live a normal life.
With the final exorcism its reported that numerous marks appeared on Roland's body and during the Litany of the Saints the mattress shook and Halloran's nose was broken.
While writing the book Blatty took some liberties with the details presented, to make the book more appealing but also to protect Roland's true identity.
One of the changes was to switch out 14 year old Roland with a 12 year old girl named Reagan MacNeil and reducing the family to just Reagan and her mother, Chris.
The other scenes that were only for entertainment, were the head spinning and the crawling on the ceiling, these events didn't occur in reality and the mark of "LOUIS" on Roland's body was changed to "HELP ME".
Apart from those few pieces the book follows the events as they happened almost to the letter.
After years of keeping Roland's true identity secret, it seems the truth eventually came out and the young boy at the centre of the true events was Roland Edwin Hunkeler, who lived from the 1st of June 1935 until the 10th of May 2020.
Hunkeler's true identity was said to have been found by JD Sword during his research for his podcast, The Devil in the Details.
Hunkeler grew up to be an engineer at NASA and patented the technology used by the space shuttle for their panels to be heat resistant. It was believed that Hunkeler was always terrified that people he worked with would find out his true identity and kept it mostly quiet up to his death.
